


after i drowned

by farnear



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Eating Disorders, Elements of Horror, Emotional Abuse, F/M, reference to rape / non-con elements (canon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 12:37:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9235553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farnear/pseuds/farnear
Summary: ‘Noora, I know you like to be beautiful.’ Noora would shake her head, but William holds it in his hands, like a ripe fruit of delicate skin he cares not to burst. ‘Nothing strange, I like you to be beautiful, too.'





	1. but hold me tight and fear me not

**Author's Note:**

> even if it won't change anything, discussing / editing this fic with asey (amplesands @ tumblr) was one of the best experiences i had in any fandom, so it was worth it anyway. 
> 
> the title is a line from Margaret Atwood's 'This is a Photograph of Me'. it goes like this: "The photograph was taken/ the day after I drowned"

_But first I'll change all in your arms_

_Into a wild wolf_

_But hold me tight and fear me not_

_I am your own true love_

\- 'Tam Lin', Anais Mitchell (Child Ballads)

 

* * *

 

 

There are no other people where she lives now, in the rooms on the top floor of 4 Lyall Street,  Belgravia, London. There are no condoms in the trash, no toilet paper shortages, no pasta is missing. She never hears Elton John. The rooms, the space, the silence belong to her and William. She is seventeen now: she is an adult. She doesn’t need Eskild, and she hasn’t needed her parents for a while. Here, it is she who decides when to wake up and what to do with a long delicious day.

After rolling in the sheets for half an hour, she goes to the kitchen. She makes herself a smoothie: every day a new one, because William brings her fresh fruit every evening. She takes a photo of it but she doesn’t post it on the Instagram. For some reason, it doesn’t go with the political cross-stich.  Perhaps she will open a separate account, or start a YouTube channel where she would focus on food. Smoothies, salads and easy vegetarian meals. All she needs to do is to ask William to buy her a camera. She sips the cranberry smoothie through a straw and smiles. She will ask William, and then she will find some tutorials– or William will hire her a personal tutor, she still forgets how much money they have (his father has) – and she will learn how to operate a camera. Once she knows all, she will spend her days busy with light and food. She takes out her phone to text Vilde, but then she remembers: it is school time in Oslo. She types the text anyway and saves it as a draft.

This accomplished, she moves from the kitchen to the bathroom and prepares a bath. She doesn’t know for how long she lies in the pool of steaming water. There has never been a good pressure in the shower back at the flat, and the water often ran cold before she was done. Now, she closes her eyes and forgets: feels the water wash off the boundaries of her body and melt her. It is always pleasant, to forget she has a body. To be limited to a sensation for a split of a second. It occurs to her there are problems posed by a culinary YouTube channel. There is no possibility of preparing a meal without exhibiting herself: her hands and her voice, her torso. If she does, she will be an object. She knows what she is: a seventeen years old girl with a beautiful body: a beautiful body with a seventeen years old girl inside.

She watches the water leave the tub: once again, she wishes it were simpler to be a good person. William told her once she wouldn’t enjoy goodness if it were easy. She replied it wasn’t the point and he laughed. Laughing, he kissed her. After he left, she touched her lips and tried to summon the laughter back. It was untraceable.

Back in their bedroom, she considers whether not to sink in the sheets again, breathe the smell of William’s pillow. She does, but it doesn’t help: he bought a new cologne (his father bought him) and she still finds its scent strange. When the sun moves far enough for her to realize its passage, she gets out of bed again and – it’s lunch time – and again, she goes to the kitchen. There are leftovers from the yesterday’s guacamole, some hummus from the day before yesterday. She checks the hour on her phone. It’s lunch time in Oslo, too. She rereads the text she saved in drafts and deletes it: a culinary YouTube channel, what house-wifery. Vilde texts her first: _Hi Noora. How is your day_ ; two heart emojis. Noora goes onto the balcony and takes a photo: Belgravia in the rare sunlight. _Still home?_ is the answer. Noora straightens her back. As if there was anyone to see it. There are no other people here, now. _Just leaving_. She goes to the bedroom, and from the bedroom she steps into the closet: a separate room where there are her clothes, William’s old clothes and William’s new clothes (the stock-broker’s job has its demands, such as a demand for crisp white shirts and dull tuxedos). She touches a tee of his – an Oslo tee. It smells right, so she puts it on and wonders if she could go to Tate Modern in it. Why not! She smiles to herself: she will show she is no house-wife. No, no. She wears tees and old jeans – she wears no lipstick – well, she wears just a touch of lipstick – and she goes to galleries: alone.

The last glance into the mirror and she falters: she recognizes the tee. It is the one William wore the afternoon they had an argument. The last argument, because they don’t do these anymore.

It had been weeks since the party on the roof and they were to leave for London soon. Before they left, she needed to tell William she didn’t – like, was the word she used – she didn’t like what he did after Nico had told him. William broke his mouth off her hip and raised eyebrows, as if to ask: is it the right moment? There could be no other. Noora tried to make a face: tried to be as she had been before she had kissed him first: cold: unconquerable. William sighed. ‘I didn’t like what Nico told me,’ he said, and his breath on her skin almost made her let it go, grab his hair and – ‘And you told me it was the truth.’ Noora pushed against him and shifted on the bed: there was no making of a case from under your opponent. ‘I told you I didn’t know,’ she said. William shrugged. ‘Same difference.’

‘No!’ The well-known indignation rose in her and she had faith: she knew she was right. ‘And, even if I was,’ she paused. ‘If Nico did,’ she paused again. ‘Even if he did anything to me, how would it be my fault? I was drunk, and unconscious, and –‘

‘He’s a threat.’ Noora saw his muscles move, the tension set into the small vulnerable space between his shoulders and his neck. ‘If you approach threats of your own willing –‘

‘No,’ she whispered and slowly – slowly – she touched him, caressed him, as if he never was a soldier, never held a weapon in his hand, never defined people as resources and threats. ‘No, no. I wasn’t sure he was a threat – he was,’ she said and kept her eyes on him, soft where he wouldn’t be. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she held him. ‘What matters is, if I were,’ she controlled herself, she didn’t let her hold on him to become a clutch, ‘if I were raped, you would blame me.’

William kissed her. She let him.

‘Yes.’

‘You are a horrible person.’

William kissed her again. She didn’t cry.

‘Where my family is concerned,’ and again. ‘Yes,’ and again, and she didn’t cry. ‘But you love me and I love you. And love means we need to be together. Whether we agree or not.’

She never cried if William was the reason. She doesn’t now. She stands in a room of the Tate Gallery: her back straight, shirt buttoned up, hands in the pockets. The painting is _Ophelia._ A girl – seventeen years old or less – floats on the river, flowers in her hair. There’s a ghost of a smile, a surprise in her eyes. The folder Noora bought at the entrance says: Elizabeth Siddall had to model in a tub. There was no proper heating: she was cold in the water. She almost died. But, oh – she was a beauty. Noora stares at _Ophelia_ , and she doesn’t cry because of William. She cries because of Ophelia and Elizabeth. All beautiful seventeen years old girls.


	2. that i may not faint or die or swoon

_There will I ask of thee a boon,_

_That I may not faint or die or swoon._

 

_Gazing through the gloom like one_

_Whose life and hopes are also done,_

_Frozen like a thing of stone_

\- 'A Silent Wood', Elizabeth Siddall

 

* * *

 

 

The sun has set, the light now absent from the walls, and she hasn’t left the bed. It is enjoyable, too: she doesn’t need to go to school and she doesn’t need to buy the groceries. She doesn’t need to go to the parties she never liked, because there are no third years here, no buses, no Russ. The cleaner, whom William hired recently – after he surveyed the living room, the dust on the unfilled bookshelves, the tea stains on the floor, and laughed: said Noora couldn’t keep a home decent, and – the cleaner, she gave Noora the left-overs contained in shining plastic boxes, the thirds and halves of the meals she forgot to eat entire. The cleaner didn’t close the door to the bedroom and although she was far, and although Noora could hear the vacuum, she was certain the cleaner would see her if she wished to. Would see her, and Noora wouldn’t know, would later find some irrefutable evidence of having been observed, examined and judged.

There were plastic containers on a plastic tray on her lap. A closed cup of kiwi smoothie, a closed box of sweet hummus, a closed bowl of guacamole heated up and gone cold. Noora raised the cup to her lips and pinched her nose: an old trick all children know to perform when asked to drink a bitter syrup. Dense liquid filled her mouth and slipped to her throat. It ran down the oesophagus, to the stomach where the acids would separate the round drops to chemicals, sugars and fats to feed her body. She sipped on the smoothie and played with her phone. The girls were commenting on the last selfie she posted – two weeks ago – the opera night William’s father orchestrated. She had gone in a dress gifted to her by Arne Magnusson, a red slippery affair that poured on her body like a second skin, or more correctly: like a second muscle tissue, exposed and raw. Eva wrote: _you look h_ and then _h like hot, or h like hella hot_. Vilde wrote _: gosh why are my friends so beautiful_ a crying emoji; a heart emoji. Sana wrote: _slay it_ and for a dizzy moment Noora wondered: slay – who? There were no other people in the picture. She finished the smoothie with a loud slurp which made her sick, but she hoped the cleaner heard. See, Noora wished to yell, I drink, I open my mouth and let a glue of fat and sugars pour in, what do you do?

She didn’t yell. She lifted the plastic box, the plastic bowl, and considered their weight. She put the tray on the bedstand, and the box and the bowl on the tray, next to the empty cup. She slid down into the sheets. William hadn’t been home for the past two days. A stockbroker business: a stock to break, a deal to make.

Now, the sun has set. The bedroom is full of shadows: a shadow of the unclosed door, a shadow of a small lamp on William’s bed-stand, shadows of the box and the bowl. She lifts herself on the elbows, takes a spoon and slowly opens the bowl. She made the guacamole two days ago: stripped the avocado of the dark skin, emptied it of its stone, crushed it to a pulp, added lemon juice. Avocados, she remembers telling Vilde, are full of protein. They are incredibly nutritious. She dips the spoon in the bowl, scoops. She puts the spoon in her mouth. She tries to chew and swallow. Slowly. Her phone chirps with a text from William: _dinner tonite at my dad’s be ready in 1h_ ; a heart emoji. Noora closes the plastic bowl. A dinner. A Magnusson dinner. This means: the piercing gaze of Arne Magnusson, the whispers of the stockbroker colleagues, an unending procession of meals. Noora pushes the covers off and stands up. It’s all she can do for a moment, the bedroom dark and swimming, the shadows hunting. When she can move, she switches the light on. There is an old lamp hung under the ceiling – its ancient core long gone and replaced with a light-bulb – now shedding its blue light on Noora, who in the mirror sees a body. Thin oil glistens on the face. She realizes she doesn’t remember when was the last time she washed herself. When William was here – two days ago.

When William was here, he kissed her hello, and he undressed her. She tried to ask, how is your job but he smiled, as if he knew it would bore her, it’s fine Noora, it’s all fine, you don’t need to worry. You don’t need to do anything but to lie here and kiss me, and isn’t it love, isn’t it a paradise. Noora considers herself in the mirror: she measures. There is more to her than a kissable, possessable body: there needs to be more to her, and she needs to be more. She needs to go out and do – anything. There is a post-it note on her laptop which says _google london charities_ : she was to go out there and apply wherever she could and wherever they would accept her (a high-schooler); she was to help, to matter, to do. Now, she is. She is here, too tired to leave her bed except to open the door for William, who – anytime he comes – will lift her up, say you’re light like a feather – and carry her back, push her into the sheets. Here he is now: the doorbell cuts the silence.

He smiles, and then he sees her.

‘The dinner,’ he murmurs into the kiss.

‘I know.’

‘Don’t you need to dress up? Wash your hair?’ He kisses her brow, her head and Noora knows she hasn’t washed her hair in too long; she knows her hair is gross; she knows William knows. ‘Are you tired? I can wash your hair for you,’ he plays with a dirty strand, and she leans into his hand. ‘I can pick a dress for you, too. Noora?’ She would like to just stay here, in his arms, with no dinners in the world. No needs. In love, in paradise. ‘Are you sick, Noora?’

‘Why –‘ but she needs to say this, ‘why does it bother you? My hair, my dress?’

‘So, women aren’t objects - is it this line?’ he asks, and she is still in his arms, but she wonders, when has her principle become a line? Was it a stockbroker colleague, or was it Arne, who said it was a line? It must have been Arne, she knows. Arne Magnusson, who has William’s eyes and none of his warmth, who married again to a beautiful girl older than Noora by a breath. There was a band of red stones on her neck, the stones too heavy for her bones like bird’s. Noora said she didn’t know William had a sister, and Arne shook with laughter – Noora was afraid he would snap the girl, the girl still in his hold, he would snap her in a half.

‘It’s not a joke, William,’ she says but she is tired. Her eyes close, her body is weak. ‘I mean it. Why, I will go,’ she thinks of the girls – how would she argue with the girls? With Vilde. She always said whatever she needed to Vilde, even if it hurt. ‘I will go just so, with my hair unwashed and, and – and in my jumper.’

William laughs.

‘You’re  a little too vain, though.’

‘I’m not!’ Noora glances to the mirror. ‘Vain!’

‘Noora, I know you like to be beautiful.’ Noora would shake her head, but William holds it in his hands, like a ripe fruit of delicate skin he cares not to burst. ‘Nothing strange, I like you to be beautiful, too. Now, let me wash your hair.’

Then, he lifts her as he always does, and he says she is light as a feather, lighter than a feather, as he always does, too, and he carries her to the bathroom. He opens the tap and he opens the cupboard; he examines the bottles of fragrant oils and the chalky bath bombs, those which look like flowers, and those which look like ice cream. He pours lavender oil into the water, and then he undresses her, and then he helps her undress him. He leads her into the bathtub by hand, and when she sits, he sits behind her, his knees closing on her arms, his ankles next to hers. He takes a small tin bucket and fills it with water; he pours it over her hair, and now it smells sweet. In the water, in the steam, in William’s lock, she loses the sense of herself, the sense of her expanses and her angles, and she wonders if she is made of lavender, if she is made of chalk, if she is made of soluble chemicals: if she will perish in the bathtub, now.

At the dinner they went to weeks ago, William spoke to his colleagues in English, quiet and quick, lost on Noora. They smiled a secret smile, a men’s smile, the smile she feared. Was it her accent? Was it her dress? Was it her body? She excused herself from the table and went – to the toilet, she said – and she went on and on, alone in the winding corridors of the country house Arne rented out for the dinner, alone with her reflection in the tall mirrors, in the tall windows, in the polished marble. It was her life now: a castle, a prince, a princess’ dress. An evil brother, an evil father, a ghost of a sister. The bathroom was blue: the tiles were blue, the porcelain sink was blue, the water taps were of blue-coloured metal. She didn’t need to go to the toilet, but she was there. She needed to make right for the wrong. She needed to make right for the wrong of a meal she just had. She needed to empty herself of the stone, she needed to be light as a feather. She pushed the hair off her face and slowly, approached the – then, Mrs Magnusson came in. Noora blinked and knew. They looked at each other, a breath and a marriage ring apart. Mrs Magnusson said: ‘If you are sick, you can leave. I should order you a cab. Please, let me’.

Noora didn’t.

The water goes cold, but she and William stay in the tub, with ice cream and lavender, in love, in paradise.


	3. fortsein

_I saw at last that this was a game, and that the child used all his toys only to play ‘being gone’ (_ fortsein _)_

 _-_ _Beyond the Pleasure Principle_ , Sigmund Freud

 

* * *

 

 

The plane takes off the Heathrow airport and eases its hard body into the air, loses its weight, loses the trace in the clouds. She has a ticket: she clutches it in her hand so it’s wet with the sweat. She isn’t on the plane. Now miles below, she is bound to the ground: she is confined to a room in Radisson Blu Edwardian, 140 Bath Road. The ticket might be rebooked. If she gets up and puts her shoes on, and takes the lift to the main hall, and takes a cab to the airport, and goes into the airport, and finds the right office, then the ticket might be rebooked. Still, the movement – the existence with other bodies, bodies with eyes, eyes on her – it is enough to make her sick. Still, move she must. She does get up: she approaches the sleek coffee table. On its surface, there lies a laminated card with the phone numbers to the hotel service. She takes her phone and copies the number she needs to call if she wishes to order any meal. She needs food. She needs nutrition: strength. They pick up before she annuls the call, and for a moment, she trembles. They ask her to choose. A glass of juice, she says. No, she stops: a cake. It comes with a knock, a perfect plate and a slice of red velvet cake: red sponge, white cream. She leaves the plate on the coffee table and sits on the floor in the front of it. Here, a cake. Here, a fork. Then, her phone rings.

It’s William.

‘Where are you?’ he is out of breath. Noora left the flat when he wasn’t there. She would lost her resolve if he were there: she would perish.

‘I am,’ she pauses. William is afraid: there is an evil brother; there is a vengeful gang. He might be preparing for a war. ‘I am at a hotel now,’ she says, short, bright. I am alright. I am unhurt. My body is intact.

‘Oh, okay,’ William breathes. ‘Did you go for a holiday? I could do with a text. It’s good though. Did you go into the country? The air there is delicious’ He doesn’t need her to reply because he knows all he needs to know: Noora has been strange; Nora hasn’t been out of their bed: now, Noora is out in the country and soon she will be back, cheeks ruddy and hips round.

‘I’m not on holiday. I am –‘ she isn’t anywhere and she isn’t anything. She is in a hotel room next to the airport: an undefined space, an undefined state. ‘I have a plane ticket. Back to Oslo.’

William laughs.

‘Do you need something from Oslo? We can arrange it to be sent here.’

She doesn’t know how to say: William, you are wrong. After she woke up next to Nico, after she saw the photograph of her body, after she ran and fell to the ground, and the asphalt grazed her skin – after, she felt she had done a wrong she wouldn’t ever right. She knows she hasn’t been – she knows Nico didn’t do anything to her, but she doesn’t – there has been time when she didn’t know, and these minutes and hours folded inwards, curled into a stone of a fruit, that is now lodged in her chest: in a small, small space, a space in the cave of her ribs, there is the time when she has been raped. She is carrying it always, and because of its weight, she cannot say: William, you are wrong; she cannot say: no. Still: say no she must.

‘No,’ she says. ‘I need – I need to be in Oslo.’

‘I don’t understand,’ William speaks slowly. He has a furrow between his eyebrows, a furrow Noora would kiss off, if she were there. She would stand on her tiptoes and pull by the strings of his hoodie – by the lapels of his new suit – and kiss, and kiss, and kiss.

‘I am always alone here, William, and –‘

‘Do you miss your friends?’ Again, he knows; she doesn’t need to speak. ‘We can invite your friends. The winter break will be soon –‘

‘No!’ she doesn’t cry. ‘Let me finish, please?’

‘Okay.’

‘I need to be in Oslo,’ she repeats. ‘It is killing me, to be here.’ Now it is hers to speak slow, and if she were there, she would hold him, and caress him. ‘You are never home, and when you are, all you do is – have sex with me, and, do not interrupt me, William – you tell me what to do, and what to wear, and you parade me before your colleagues and – and your dad – as if I were a, a, a doll, and – I am not a doll, William. I am not – a body. I am a person, and I need to – live, like a person. And I can’t, here. I can’t live like a person in London. So,’ she finishes.

She has said it. The weight in her chest isn’t any lighter, but she has said it.

‘William? Hello? William, say something?

‘I don’t understand.’ She knows: he comes from a house where a girl was a ghost; where the opera music played when a child had a tantrum. She knows: mama didn’t care; papa had gone to London. It is a betrayal. ‘Is it because you don’t want to wash your hair anymore?’

‘No! It’s not – it’s how you look at me, and how you speak to me when the other men are listening –‘

‘How do I look at you, then?’

‘I – I can’t explain.’

Is it true he doesn’t know? He does look at her – and his colleagues look at her – and his father looks at her – they all look at her, a small girl who came to London to be alone, to sleep in the bed William’s father bought, to cry in the bathroom of the country house William’s father rented. They look at her as if they knew of the weight in her chest. They look at her as if they knew of her first boyfriend. They look at her as if they knew of her parents. Perhaps, they are right. Perhaps, the weight of the stone she carries is older, is as old as Noora: perhaps the stone is the core of her, the inevitability of the fruit, of the ripening. There is a wrong she won’t ever right: she. She is a girl – beautiful, seventeen – who is to be left. She knew William would leave: deep within, she sighed with relief when she fell and felt the skin on her hands cut. This is it, she thought then. This is what I’ve been waiting for.

‘Noora,’ he is soft, now. ‘You’re just homesick.’

‘No,’ she cries, a little. ‘I’m not just homesick, William. I am dying here.’

‘You said we need to be together,’ softness gone, Noora recognizes an argument.

It was Sana who asked if she had a problem because William was smarter. No: there is a point where you have no more words but you are right. She was right when she said William did Vilde wrong; did her wrong; did the boy on whose head he smashed a bottle wrong. She couldn’t argue, but she knew she was right and it should be enough. She is right: it is enough and to be together is enough no longer.

‘I need to be alive to be together with anyone, William. If I stay here, I won’t be. We – we need – I want us to be together –‘ There is a red velvet cake at the coffee table. She will eat it, and digest it, and absorb the nutrients. She will stand up and leave the room. ‘But not – not at whatever cost.’

‘Love doesn’t bargain.’

‘I don’t-!’ she cries, hard. ‘Please, don’t speak to me like – I love you, I love you so much I might burst.’ It’s true: at the core, she is a girl who loves a boy who uses people and smashes bottles. She is a girl who loves those who leave her; who are gone. ‘But I need, I need to get out of here! If you – if you love me, why don’t you want me to get better? Don’t you want me to get better? I am sick, William. I am terribly – terribly sick.’ There is a red velvet cake at the coffee table. She doesn’t believe she will eat it.

‘You can get any doctor here, Noora. You don’t need to leave to get better.’

‘I do!’ She considers it – she always does – the future if she doesn’t leave. She doesn’t leave the bed, or she does. She goes to a museum in a tee, or in a shirt. She eats, or she doesn’t. She marries William. She goes to the dinners. She wears dresses. She wears bands of red stones. She takes baths. She doesn’t need to do anything – everything is done for her: bought, brought, arranged. ‘Please, just let me go,’ she says and she is tired. ‘Say you will love me anyways. I will. Please say this.’

‘Do you need me to love you more than you need to leave me?’

She doesn’t let the sob choke her.

‘No.’

There is a cut, then a sound – he hung up.

Noora doesn’t stand up. Her hand slides down, and the phone slips to the floor. There is a carpet, so it doesn’t break. She focuses on the carpet, the pattern of it, a repetition of circles. The phone, unbroken. The absence of the sound.

She doesn’t stand up. She doesn’t eat the red velvet cake. She doesn’t check out from the hotel and she doesn’t rebook her ticket. And: she doesn’t pick the phone from the floor. She doesn’t text William. She doesn’t call William. She doesn’t call a cab to take her to William. No, she is unmoved: unconquerable. The moon rises and the cake goes stale. She doesn’t leave and then: she does, because leave she must. She doesn’t have enough money to pay for the room any longer, and she doesn’t want to consider other options. She does stand up – the cake thrown to trash – she leaves the room; she leaves the hotel; she leaves the airport on a plane. She leaves the country: the rolling hills, the chalky cliffs; she loses the trace. When she leaves the plane, she cries, but she goes to a bathroom and reapplies the eyeliner, the powder, the lipstick. She stops – and almost turns back – but she always picks her step back, and leaves, and keeps on leaving.

**Author's Note:**

> sequel: 'Woke Up New' by The Mountain Goats put on the loop
> 
> this fic has been inspired by fairy tales and gothic romances, more specifically: by bluebeard's bride and erl king (as retold by Angela Carter in "The Bloody Chamber") & "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. i have also had nimmieamee's take on niall / aurora from TRC on my mind.
> 
> i'm always happy to talk fairy tales, gothic romance, colons and everything else, either here or on zielenna @ tumblr.
> 
> & a memo i didn't think i would need to add (but here we are): if you want to write meta on why noorhelm makes sense, please do, but perhaps not in the comments under a fic if your meta has no reference to it? i am all for voicing one's opinions, but there are more appropriate platforms.


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